Doctors back mix of private and NHS treatment

Published on Wednesday 9 July 2008 21:46

PATIENTS should be allowed to buy drugs unavailable on the health service without having their free NHS treatment taken away from them, doctors said yesterday.

In an emotionally charged debate, delegates at the British Medical Association (BMA) conference in Edinburgh said they agreed in principle with co-payments – topping up NHS care with additional private treatments.

But they stopped short of immediately demanding that UK governments bring co-payments into the NHS, instead calling for a Royal Commission to review the implications.

It comes after a growing number of patients have seen their NHS care removed because they want to buy extra drugs that could extend their lives.

NHS rules state that during a single course of treatment, patients cannot be cared for by the NHS and pay for part of their treatment privately. This results in patients paying privately for all their care, including scans and blood tests.

The Westminster government is conducting a review of co-payments to decide whether they should be allowed on the NHS, while the Scottish Government has also said it is looking into the issue. Last week the head of the BMA in Scotland, Peter Terry, told The Scotsman he believed that not allowing co-payments on the NHS was "inhumane".

There was fierce debate yesterday among doctors about whether co- payments should be permitted or whether it would lead to a two-tier NHS. Dr Stephen Austin, from the BMA's consultants committee, asked doctors to imagine sitting in front of a patient for whom other treatments had failed, but a drug not available on the NHS might help extend their life.

He said the difficulty lay in telling them that if they chose to pay for the treatment themselves, they would have to pay for all their NHS care.

Dr Austin said not allowing co- payments widened the gap between rich and poor.

Gordon Matthews, a surgeon from Buckinghamshire, said he was speaking in favour of co-payments as a doctor but also as the husband of "a most cherished wife" with advanced colon cancer. He said a tax-funded system could not provide limitless funds for very expensive drugs, so it "must be acceptable" to allow people to pay for treatment.

But many doctors said co-payments would be a move away from the founding principles of the NHS, with treatment based solely on need.

Dr Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist, of London, said drug companies would "put pressure on vulnerable patients" if co-payments came in. She said: "If we vote for co-payments, we will be voting for NHS charges."

Dr Kevin O'Kane, of London, described the motion on co-payments as "a nail in the lid of the NHS coffin".